Beautiful sunset. I rush for a quick flight for images from the Santa Cruz Mountains. But getting everything set up takes a few minutes.
Getting somewhat dark, but we lift off smoothly past the dangerous sculptures on our deck, my wife does metal sculptures - beautiful but they are drone traps!
I am heading out to the trees and ... loose sight in a jiffy. I can hear the drone but do not see it. We are hovering between trees! Turning and moving I do not see a flash.Time to get serious!
1. First check, plenty of battery left.
2. Rotating the Mini I set the unobstructed skyline but total darkness towards me.
3. Time to be strategic.
4. I put the controller down and get equipment - real shoes and a head light!
5. I decided to keep the drone stable and get closer.
Next I head down for the road below our property - it is above a canyon. I have to loop back to get into drone hearing range. The road is on the DJI map. The drone is also visible on the map.
Once I was in line of the drone I still could not see it. I decided to bring it to 400 ft in sports mode. This was safe from the trees. I could then hear its location more clearly, but it was too high to see the lights.
Using the GPS map display I brought the drone closer to me with some distance due to some close trees.
I then lowered its height until it become visible. If you do it in Cinema mode that takes a long time. I wanted to preserve battery time, so I switched to Sports mode.
But dropping down fast in Sports changes the lateral position, So you want to be careful.
Finally I was able to see it close to the tree tops - these are redwoods!
I switched to Cinema mode and carefully maneuvered around the branches to bring it down.
Oh what a feeling!
The lessons:
- Night flight is tricky. Those LED lights fade quickly.
- Trees are tricky!
- Recreational flying must use visual flight modes for a reason.
- Keep your head! I tend to keep my cool and that helps. We had a forrest fire next to our house and my heart rate slowed for action! I am just wired that way. Lucky!
- I am getting a strobe. But flying at night is a bit scary.
- If you use the facilities in this little drone, there is quite a lot of capability with GPS.
And I love having the little guy tucked and the batteries charging for the next adventure!
Getting somewhat dark, but we lift off smoothly past the dangerous sculptures on our deck, my wife does metal sculptures - beautiful but they are drone traps!
I am heading out to the trees and ... loose sight in a jiffy. I can hear the drone but do not see it. We are hovering between trees! Turning and moving I do not see a flash.Time to get serious!
1. First check, plenty of battery left.
2. Rotating the Mini I set the unobstructed skyline but total darkness towards me.
3. Time to be strategic.
4. I put the controller down and get equipment - real shoes and a head light!
5. I decided to keep the drone stable and get closer.
Next I head down for the road below our property - it is above a canyon. I have to loop back to get into drone hearing range. The road is on the DJI map. The drone is also visible on the map.
Once I was in line of the drone I still could not see it. I decided to bring it to 400 ft in sports mode. This was safe from the trees. I could then hear its location more clearly, but it was too high to see the lights.
Using the GPS map display I brought the drone closer to me with some distance due to some close trees.
I then lowered its height until it become visible. If you do it in Cinema mode that takes a long time. I wanted to preserve battery time, so I switched to Sports mode.
But dropping down fast in Sports changes the lateral position, So you want to be careful.
Finally I was able to see it close to the tree tops - these are redwoods!
I switched to Cinema mode and carefully maneuvered around the branches to bring it down.
Oh what a feeling!
The lessons:
- Night flight is tricky. Those LED lights fade quickly.
- Trees are tricky!
- Recreational flying must use visual flight modes for a reason.
- Keep your head! I tend to keep my cool and that helps. We had a forrest fire next to our house and my heart rate slowed for action! I am just wired that way. Lucky!
- I am getting a strobe. But flying at night is a bit scary.
- If you use the facilities in this little drone, there is quite a lot of capability with GPS.
And I love having the little guy tucked and the batteries charging for the next adventure!
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